


send in the clowns

by hammerhorror



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Closeted Character, Fix-It, Gen, Healing, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Post-Pennywise (IT), Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, beverly and eddie heal from trauma together power hour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hammerhorror/pseuds/hammerhorror
Summary: Beverly rises to her feet and then pulls Eddie up to his, and it only hurts a little bit. She throws back her head and laughs—she’s wine drunk and her cheeks are flushed. She takes Eddie’s hand in hers, and then places her other one on his shoulder, and leads him in a slow, clumsy dance. “This is how we would have danced together at prom,” she says.“To Stephen Sondheim’s greatest hits?” Eddie asks, laughing, and then gasping, surprised when Beverly dips him down so low he’s scared that he’ll collapse. He doesn’t collapse, though. Because he’s getting better. He’s getting stronger. Leaving Derry was the cure. And Beverly doesn’t treat him like he’s made of glass.-Or: Eddie and Beverly undergo emotional catharsis, together.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	send in the clowns

_Hey, Eddie. Can you tell which one of us is talking to you or should I say—uh, hey, Beverly here. We finally convinced Richie to go back to the townhouse and take care of himself. He’s a mess. Eddie… listen. I want you to know something. I really want you to hear this. I have plans for us. Something went wrong in our lives and I’m not going to watch you die before we fix it. So please. Please, wake up, Eddie. I know you’re way too fucking stubborn and belligerent to go out like this. So wake up. Okay? I fucking mean it._

**+**

Eventually, he wakes up. Then he sleeps, and he wakes up, and he sleeps. He has fuzzy, confusing conversations with a lot of different people. Nurses, doctors, some telehealth consultation for mental health, a specialist who is upset with his current medication regimen. There’s Richie, Bill, Ben, and Mike. Stan comes by and introduces him to Patty.  
  


And of course, Beverly, who is very invested in what the doctors, and nurses, and specialists are saying. At one point Eddie can hear her raising an ugly fuss with one of them. The idea of leaving his health in the hands of other people is terrifying to Eddie, but if it has to happen, he’s glad that it’s with Beverly Marsh.

**+**

The first coherent sentence Eddie says is: “Holy fucking shit, it hurts.”  
  


Richie starts crying—you’d think he’s the one who got skewered by an interdimensional clown demon. He’s holding both of Eddie’s hands. Holding them in his stupidly big, warm, strong hands. Just holding them like he’s never held something so precious in his entire life. “I know,” he says. “We’ll get them to give you more of the good stuff. As much as you want.”  
  


“Don’t want to get addicted,” Eddie says. “Haven’t you been reading the news? There’s an opioid crisis in America.”  
  


“You fucking idiot,” Richie sobs. “Stupid idiot. Can I hug you? Please? Will it hurt too much?”

“I don’t know. Just. Lean over me. Like a blanket.”

“Okay,” Richie sniffs. He puts his hands on either side of Eddie, right above his shoulders. He stares down at him. He’s crying like they do in cartoons, inhumanly big tears welling up in his eyes. They fall into the lenses of his glasses and make tiny little ponds. “I love you so much, Eddie. I’m sorry. But I have to ask. Did you hear me say that?”

“Yeah. I heard it,” Eddie says.

“I really love you. You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to tell you.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

“We can take a rain check on talking about it.”

“Yes. Please. But I do—please understand. I do want to talk about it. I’m not trying to put it off.”

“I know. Eddie, I know. Okay? Don’t even worry about it. That’s the last thing you need to be worrying about right now.”

Eddie reaches up with his good arm. He grabs Richie by the collar of his shirt and he pulls him close. Richie was always in Eddie’s face when they were kids. Eddie can’t believe he forgot to miss that. “I know you carried me out of there,” he says. “I kind of remember. Bits and pieces, you know. And the things you said.”

“Ben helped,” Richie says, suddenly very bashful.

“Yeah, well. I remember you holding me. Thank you,” he says. He’s tired. He falls asleep like that, with Richie’s shirt clutched tight in his fist. 

**+**

Beverly stretches her limbs, long and graceful, till they’re pulled taut. She yawns from the ugly mint green pleather recliner that she moved up against the left side of Eddie’s hospital bed. On his right side are two metal chairs pushed together like a makeshift cot, empty.

“Dreamed about you,” she says, sleepy. Smiling.

“Hmm,” is all Eddie can give, still half asleep. He takes a deep breath—he’s breathing on his own now. He had been hooked up to a respirator before he was out of the woods, but now his body can take care of itself, at least on that front. No tubes and mechanical whirring to signify the inorganic rise and fall of his chest. He’s suddenly very conscious of the intricate workings of his body, which he both loves and hates in equal measure. “What was I doing?”

“You were a little kid. Cute as a button. I was too, I think, and we were at Neibolt. You were walking inside, and I started crying… Remember that kids’ book about the wild things?”

“Kind of,” Eddie says, comes out more like a groan. It hurts to talk, still.

“I was crying, and then I said, please don’t go… I’ll gobble you up. I love you so.”

Eddie bites his lip. Chapped and raw. He doesn’t want to cry. He doesn’t have much left in him at all. He tries to focus on what’s playing on television. Some home improvement show that seems to suit Ben’s tastes. He probably left it on when he went back to the townhouse to shower and take a decent nap.

But Eddie does end up crying, just a little bit. Beverly is good at not crowding him too much. She folds her arms over the side of the bed and rests her head on them. She kneads her fingers gently into the scratchy hospital blanket. “Stan is doing better,” she says. “He came to see you, with Patty. They’re so in love it makes me feel insane.” 

He can remember that, kind of. Patty’s kind, sweet words. The gentle rub of Stan’s thumb over his temple. “What about everyone else?” he asks, wiping his eyes.

“They’ve all been coming and going. Sometimes you’re awake when they’re here, but not really awake. You talk, but it’s like you aren’t really here. Richie—it’s an act of fucking Congress to get him to take care of himself.” Beverly moves her hand over to Eddie’s knee and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Do you remember, uh. Your wife calling?”

Eddie groans. “Yes. Vaguely.”

“Yeah, she wants to come get you. Bill has your phone—I don’t know, we tried talking to her as diplomatically as we could. Richie got so angry, and then he passed the phone off to me. And then I got angry, so I passed the phone off to Bill. He convinced her to hold off, for now.”

It’s admittedly pretty funny to imagine. Richie and Beverly both run pretty hot and lose their temper quickly once a certain threshold of stress has been crossed, Eddie remembers that much about them from childhood. It was probably a bad idea to allow either of them to try and talk to Myra. But of course they would be the first ones to step up to the plate.

“She called me a hussy,” Beverly continues, grinning, and this makes Eddie laugh so hard he thinks he can feel a little bit of blood seeping into the bandaging around his chest. It hurts, but he’s laughing, and he’s with Beverly, so he’s happy. “I’m telling you. I know she’s your wife, and I understand why she’s worried… but if she shows up before you’re ready and tries to cause a scene, I’ll drag her out of here by her hair. I’m not even worried about it.”

“I know, Bev.”

“Her mouth is writing checks that her ass can’t cash, Eddie.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, still laughing. “That sounds like her.”

**+**

Eddie takes two slow, painful walks up and down the hallway and the doctor decides that he’s alright to be discharged and notes that Eddie is healing remarkably fast. He mostly just needs to worry about taking care of the wounds, preventing infection, changing the dressing and things like that. Eddie can’t believe this guy went to school for a decade to tell him shit he already knows. 

They all cry and hug when Stan announces that he and Patty are going home. It becomes obvious to Eddie that they could have left several days ago, but they were waiting for Eddie to be discharged. Twenty-seven years later and Stan is still just the same as before. Always reliable and always so generous with his time.

“This isn’t it for us,” Stan says. “You know. We’ll see each other. As often as we can.”

They all nod and then they cry some more. Richie holds on to Stan with a vice grip, sobbing his eyes out, which makes them all laugh in how overdramatic it looks.

Bill is the next to leave. Back at the townhouse, Eddie watches him pack up the last of his belongings. He remembers to give Eddie’s phone back to him and relays the details of the many frantic conversations he’s had to endure with Myra. “And I’m sorry,” he says, “I wish I didn’t have to leave so soon, but Audra is out of her mind worried. I’ll be back out to see you as soon as I possibly can. Wherever you end up, I’ll come to you. Okay?”

Eddie nods. “I live in New York,” he says, in case Bill missed it.

“Eddie,” he says, with purpose and intention.

“ _What_ ,” Eddie says, annoyed, feeling like a little kid. Is Bill expecting him to say something? He has this stupid, funny look on his face. Eddie’s forgotten how to do this. How to communicate openly with others. “What, Bill? What?”

“I’m sorry. That I yelled at you,” Bill says. 

“I know. I don’t want to think about it. It’s okay. Don’t bring it up again,” Eddie says, all in one fell swoop. That should about cover it. He adds, “I love you, Bill.”

“I love you too. Listen—take _care_ of yourself, okay?”

“Obviously,” Eddie says.

“You know what I mean, Eddie.” 

Bill is basically vibrating with anxiety. He has to be talked down from cancelling his flight no less than ten times by Mike and Eddie—the other three have already said their goodbyes and have returned to their respective rooms to gather their bearings and Bill is showing himself to be surprisingly vulnerable now that he’s not surrounded by such a large group. 

“Remember what Stan said,” Mike says warmly, leaning against the doorframe. “This isn’t it for us.”

“I know,” Bill says. “Fuck, it just feels so wrong. Leaving. Feels like the worst thing I’ll ever do in my entire life. Eddie, please don’t be mad at me.”

That lures a laugh out of Eddie. It’s so funny to hear those words, coming from Bill. But Bill is looking at Eddie in such painful despair, it very quickly stops being funny. “Bill, everything is okay. I’m not mad at you. Go do what you need to do. We’ll see each other soon.”

“Okay,” Bill says. He gives Eddie a light hug, his arms ghosting around him, not applying any pressure. Mike tells Eddie that he’ll be back soon, and the two of them leave, only after Eddie refuses to allow one of them to help him back to his room.

As he’s hobbling down the hall on his cane, he finds that he can hear Beverly and Richie talking through the crack in the door of Beverly’s room. They sound upset, but not really at each other. At the state of things, probably, which is fair.

“Richie—listen to me, you really need to fucking calm down and listen to me. He very obviously wants you around. But he’s—look, it’s about to be really difficult for him, with his wife. You’re going to have to decide if you can be here for him in the way that he needs you to be,” Beverly says. It’s tough love, the way she’s talking. Eddie thinks maybe this isn’t really fair. Richie hasn’t done anything wrong. All he really did was tell Eddie some life-altering information when he was uncertain if Eddie would live or die. No big deal. These pain meds are amazing, he thinks, unrelated.

Eddie doesn’t want to hear what Richie says next, so he walks faster than his body wants him to, which really fucking hurts. He’s winded before he reaches his room, so he leans against the wall right outside of Ben’s and knocks on the door.

The door opens so quickly it’s as if Ben had been waiting for someone. “Whoa, you okay, Eddie?” he asks, holding out his arm so that Eddie can quickly brace against him. He leads him slowly inside and to the bed. “You gotta be okay with asking us for help, man.”

“Yeah,” Eddie grunts, letting himself drop down on the bed. Ben leans over, grabs Eddie’s ankles, and pulls his legs up on to the bed. Eddie slowly lays down flat on his back and lets out a long, heavy exhale. Ben takes his cane and leans it up against the nightstand. He’s always been so thoughtful and courteous.

“Look,” Ben says, sitting down beside Eddie on the far side of the bed. “I’m just waiting for the go ahead from whoever. Beverly can’t go home. I know you have a lot to deal with. And Richie, I don’t know, I think he’s trying to figure out where and how he’s needed.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything, so Ben continues: “I’ve been talking to Beverly. She needs somewhere safe to be, and she thinks that you do, too. I offered my place upstate. Is that… something you would want…? Just you and her for a while. She made that really clear. Really, really clear. Like, I’ll take you guys up there, but I won’t… stay.”

“I want to divorce my wife,” Eddie says.

Ben lets out a surprised laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he says.

**+**

In the end, Eddie asks Richie to stay with him, until they get to Ben’s place. Richie’s eyes nearly bug out of his head and he asks Eddie if he really means that, because he’ll fuck off if that’s what Eddie wants.

“I want you here. Only if it’s not going to be any trouble,” Eddie says. He’s divvying up his painkiller supply into a new pill case he had Ben pick up at Keene’s. The fact that he has even managed to have any coherent conversations with his friends is amazing in itself, with all of the heavy-duty prescriptions he left the hospital with.

“It’s no trouble, Eddie. I need you to understand, I will do anything you want me to do,” Richie says, his voice cracking. Was Richie always such a crybaby? “Quite literally anything you want, man.”

That’s a scary thought, Eddie thinks. Maybe Eddie was expecting Richie to say, no, that he needs to get back to California because he has big, important famous person responsibilities to tend to. And yeah, Richie loves Eddie, and Richie would do anything for love, but he won’t do that. Or whatever. There’s this voice in the back of Eddie’s head that’s kind of like, _you’re just trying to put Richie through an intricate series of tests to prove if he really meant what he said. You’re trying to catch him slipping up so you can start analyzing the risk. The risk of Richie. Loving. You. The risk of Richie loving you._

Eddie manages a smile. Because he’s so fucking tired, down to his bones, even smiling is too much effort, but he knows he has to give Richie _something_. Richie seems to visibly relax at that. “You’re kind of my best friend, Rich. I don’t want you to go yet. I want you to stay with me.” He snaps the last day closed on his pill case.

The last thing Eddie needs to do before they leave town is call Myra. He knows that despite all of the grief she has given him since the day they met, it isn’t okay—the way he has left her hanging and completely clueless with only the bare minimum of knowledge that her husband is kind of, sort of alright.

So he unlocks his phone and he calls her. Richie stands up from the bed and moves to leave, to give Eddie privacy, but Eddie grabs his hand and pulls him back. He can’t do this alone. Myra answers almost instantly, incoherent and belligerent sobbing of which Eddie can make neither heads nor tails.

“Myra,” he says through her screaming and wailing. “Myra. Myra. Myra. Myra.” He almost starts laughing, because he can see out of the corner of his eye that Richie is also starting to laugh but is very obviously trying to keep it down.

“Eddie, how could you? How could you do this to me? Do you know how worried I’ve been? I thought you were dead! And those people—those horrible, nasty people! In all the years I’ve known you, you have never spoken of any of these people, and suddenly they’re telling me that I can’t come pick up my husband from the hospital?”

“Myra, listen to me. I’m sorry. A lot has happened. Those people are my friends and they all waited with me until I was discharged from the hospital. They thought it would be too much for you to—”

“Are you even going to tell me what happened?”

“Look—Myra,” Eddie says. He doesn’t even know where to start.

This is his wife, and for better or worse he made a promise to this woman, and they have been through so much together. But was any of it even really together? It was more like Eddie experiencing the ups and downs of his generally unpleasant life while Myra orbited around him, hounding him over his macros and how late he worked, a love that was ostensible at its very best because the goal was to keep him weak and reliant on her forever. And it would have gone on until he died, if Mike had not called him back to Derry.

He is trapped between feeling like he owes Myra both everything and nothing at all. An explanation, a promise that he’ll be home soon, something, anything to quell her worries. What is he supposed to do in this situation?

So he decides to tell her what he thinks is the most important nugget of information. “I want a divorce.” She screams, he hangs up the phone, Richie stares at him slack jawed, and then Beverly knocks on the door and tells them that it’s time to go.

**+**

It’s difficult saying goodbye to Mike. He helps them load up all of their luggage in the back of an excessively spacious rental and he’s joyfully listing all of the places he intends to visit once he ties up some loose ends in Derry.

“Wherever you end up,” he says, “I’ll come see you.”

Eddie thinks it’s funny that everyone is acting like he’s going to end up someplace other than New York and he isn’t really sure what the implication is, but he says, “Okay. I’m going to miss you, Mikey.”

“I basically can’t even put it into words,” Mike says tearfully, “how much I am going to miss you.”

“Crybabies, all of you,” Eddie says, and he leans into Mike in place of a hug. Mike puts his arm gently around Eddie’s shoulder and gives him a light squeeze. It hurts a little, but it’s okay.

Mike helps him into the car and says goodbye, and that he loves them, and then he says goodbye again and that he loves them again. They all laugh.

“We’re so fucking codependent,” Beverly sighs, shaking her head. “Pathetic,” she says, and then she wipes her eyes. 

**+  
  
**

Eddie drifts in an out of consciousness several times during the drive. He likes listening to the constant chatter between the other three, so he doesn’t say much even while he’s awake—Ben is driving, Beverly has her feet up on the dashboard in the passenger seat, and Richie is leaning forward with his chin resting on the back of Beverly’s seat so they can better hear each other.

“I went through this phase where I was trying to read fiction, you know I’ve always been more of a historical non-fiction kind of guy,” Ben says, “so I read this book about a woman who lives in a sand pit. Like a constantly collapsing pit of sand. And then this guy gets stuck in there with her and they have to dig the sand up every day. He can’t get out, he’s trapped inside. But then at the end, when he has the chance to get out… he _stays_.”

Beverly gasps dramatically.

Eddie sleeps.

“No, listen to me, anyone who doesn’t recognize _Eternal Flame_ as one of the best songs of the eighties is a petulant fucking child, what are you afraid of a little slow jam? Grow the fuck up. If Eddie were awake right now he would totally back me up on this,” Richie says.

“God forbid I want to shake my ass!” Beverly says defensively.

“It’s a great song,” Eddie offers, eyes still closed. “A classic.”

“See? The man of the hour agrees, this conversation is over.”

Eddie sleeps.

“It was the worst fucking experience of my life. No, I’m serious. Way before _Hamilton_ , there was _Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson_. My friend took me to see it for my birthday. And at one point in the show the guy—Andrew Jackson, he comes out into the audience. I was sitting in an aisle seat, he grinds right up on me and was like, _how do you like this stimulus package_? I almost died. I could feel his dick through his pants,” Beverly says.

Eddie sleeps.

“ _Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling, do you feel my heart beating? Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Is this burn—_ Oh my God, Richie, you were so fucking right about this song. _An eternal flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame—_ ”

Eddie sleeps.

**+**

When Eddie stirs awake and realizes that he is being carried from the car to Ben’s house in Richie’s arms, he says, “Too tired to tell you to fuck off.” He feels so warm, and so safe, and so secure it does some kind of fucked up double reach-around from making him really happy to making him really fucking sad.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Richie says. He carries Eddie all the way back to the guest bedrooms where Ben has loaded up Eddie’s suitcases and sets him down on the bed. “I’m gonna miss you, Eds.”

“Are you two leaving right this second?” Eddie asks, feeling like he’s already said far too many goodbyes over the last two days.

He had picked up on bits and pieces of the conversation in the car—Ben is going to fly out to Los Angeles with Richie and stay with him for as long as Beverly insists that she needs her space. They all need to be alone, yet together, is what Beverly had said. It was ambiguous and enigmatic, but Ben and Richie agreed with her, whatever she meant. 

“Tomorrow morning,” Richie says.

“I’ll miss you too. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.” He grabs at the duvet of the bed and feels up the material. It’s soft. Good quality. “If you leave without saying goodbye, it’ll break my heart.” He could fall asleep just like this. He does.

**+**

Richie leaves without saying goodbye. To be fair, he hadn’t promised he would do otherwise. It breaks Eddie’s heart.  
  


**+**

“Okay, you lazy bitch,” Beverly says, drawing back the curtains to let in some natural light. “I’ve let you sleep long enough. You’re going to take your medicine, we’re going to change your bandages, and then we’re going to for a walk around the property. It’s beautiful back here.”

Eddie has no idea how long he’s been asleep, so he has no idea how long it’s been since he last took any pain medication. He can remember Beverly gently shaking him awake and giving him his antibiotics sometime last night, but nothing else. He isn’t hurting as much as he feared he would as he slowly sits up. Beverly tosses him two pill cases—one for his regular round of medication and supplements, the other for his painkiller and antibiotic regimen. She hands him a bottle of water.

“Didn’t take you for the nurturing type,” he says.

“Fuck off. I’m not. I just love you. And Richie was driving me crazy making sure I knew exactly when you needed to take this and that. Like I’m an idiot,” she says, but she isn’t really upset. She’s smiling.

One time Eddie’s mother had referred to Beverly as a _rough girl_ , and it was supposed to be an insult. Eddie doesn’t really see it as a bad thing. She smooths him out.

“I heard them leaving,” Eddie says.

“Yeah.” Beverly sits down at the foot of the bed and pats Eddie’s ankle. “They didn’t want to wake you. Don’t be upset at him, okay?”

“I’m not,” Eddie says. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t even care. He doesn’t owe me anything. Neither does Ben for that matter. And yet. Here I am. That’s so weird… you know?”

“That people love you?” Beverly asks.

Eddie nods, throwing back his pills. He’s gotten good at taking handfuls of medication in one go over the years. He used to gag every morning taking his medication when he was living with his mother.

“Eddie,” Beverly says, “you’re a lovable person.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, laughing. “Fucking ridiculous.”

“You want to know a secret? So am I. A therapist told me that once and I wanted to scream right in her face to shut the fuck up. But I have to believe it. Otherwise, what are we doing? You know, what are we working on? Now get ready. I mean it, we’re going for a walk.”

Eddie’s mobility is much better today. Maybe leaving Derry was the cure. Beverly is present, and helpful, but not too much. Not enough to make Eddie feel defensive and awkward about how much help he needs to get through the day.

She sits on the side of the enormous bathtub in the en suite guest bathroom and talks about normal shit while Eddie washes his face and brushes his teeth and becomes something resembling a real person again. She talks about something stupid she saw on Twitter earlier. A funny TMZ article about Richie Tozier’s mysterious meltdown and subsequent pilgrimage to Bumfuck, Maine. The fact that Mike set a group chat up for all of them, so he’s going to have a million notifications when he turns his phone back on because Richie never shuts the fuck up.

“Stan keeps sending us pictures of birds. He wants us to come visit him and Patty in Georgia.”

Eddie feels his lower lip tremble. He needs to stop crying every time he thinks about Stan. It serves no purpose, but it keeps happening.

“I know,” Beverly says gently. “I know. He’s okay, Eddie. And so are you. And so are the rest of us. We’re… okay.”

When it’s time to change the dressing on his wounds, Eddie can’t bring himself to look at his own body. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut.

“Badass,” Beverly says, observing the stitches on his face. Eddie is rather impressed that she washed her hands up to the elbows and put on a pair of medical gloves without having to be asked. “This is healing so fast. Derry magic.” She runs her finger lightly over the aching skin on his chest to apply antibiotic cream.

She doesn’t push him to open his eyes, just replaces the dressing with clean bandages, wraps him up tight over his arm and around his torso. Seals him up tight like the world’s saddest Christmas present.

“Thanks,” he says quietly, embarrassed. “Was it bad?”

“Not really,” Beverly says, taking off the gloves and tossing them in the garbage. “I mean… it’s obviously going to scar. I think it’s sexy, though,” she shrugs.

They move back out into the bedroom and Beverly helps him find something to wear. He didn’t exactly pack for leisure when Mike called him, but he has a pair of sweatpants and a few threadbare t-shirts. Beverly shamelessly digs through Ben’s closet for a big, comfortable sweater and she helps Eddie navigate his bum arm through the sleeve when he starts to struggle.

It’s mid-afternoon by the time they actually make it outside. Eddie wants to apologize for taking so long, but Beverly just paddles pointless apologies right back at him.  
  


She’s right—it’s absurdly beautiful back here. The sun filters through the trees in waves as the wind serenely, gently blows the branches around, kind of making everything look like it’s under water. There’s a walking trail that circles around the property. Eddie walks with his cane and Beverly’s arm looped through his own.

“Ben said you told him he couldn’t stay here,” Eddie says.

“Mmmhmm.”

“That man really let you kick him out of his own house.”

Beverly laughs. It echoes. “Ha! Yeah, he did. He understands the situation. That’s all. I’m kind of in danger. My husband will kill me if he finds me, probably. And I wasn’t about to let your wife get her hands on you as soon as you were discharged from the hospital. Not to overstep…” She looks at Eddie for approval.

“No, it’s fine,” he says.

“I could just tell,” she continues. “When I talked to her. She sounds just like your mom did. And the way she talked about you—it made me so sick. And then… I know you don’t remember this, because you were so drugged up, but you told me you were really unhappy. And that you didn’t want to go home. So. I wasn’t about to let you go back to that. I know I made a lot of decisions for you… I’m sorry if it isn’t what you wanted.”

“It’s fine, Beverly, that’s not—You’re… in danger and you’re worrying about me,” Eddie says helplessly. The idea that Beverly would choose Eddie of all people to stay with her when she’s hiding from her husband will be hilarious in hindsight one day, he thinks, but today it’s sad and scary.

“Oh hush. I’ve been in danger my whole life, Eddie. First it was my dad. Then a pathetically long series of shitty boyfriends. And then Tom. This is nothing new.” She pauses, shivers against a particularly frigid gust of wind. Her cheeks are red from the cold. “I knew I didn’t want to be alone. And I knew that you couldn’t be alone.” 

They walk the rest of the trail in silence.

**+**

“I’m going to the grocery store,” Beverly announces after three hours of _Unsolved Mysteries_ has left her restless and bored. “I drove to town with Ben earlier and brought back a rental for us to use before they left. Do you want to come with me? You don’t have to.”

“Everyone will look at me,” Eddie says nervously, eyes locked on the TV.

Beverly doesn’t push it. “Okay, well. Call me if you need anything.” She lingers, like she’s hesitant to leave, but eventually she does.

And so Eddie is left alone for the first time in, well, he doesn’t really know. He has no idea how long he was in the hospital. He just never thought to ask. He decides to turn on his phone, which has been off since they left Derry.

Dozens of missed calls and text messages from Myra. Some correspondence from work that he needs to answer. The paperwork from the hospital was enough to keep them sympathetic and accommodating for the time being, and they are understandably concerned that he was stabbed and impaled in a _basic human decency_ kind of way. 

And then there are endless notifications from the group chat Mike set up with everyone. Bill must have put the others’ phone numbers in Eddie’s phone while he was unconscious in the hospital. There are too many messages for him to catch up on in one go, but he tries. It’s mostly just nonsense, mundane conversations about this and that, nothing particularly pressing or special.

**Ben** : Landed in LA. 😀  
**Stan** : Who ended up going where?  
**Ben** : Beverly and Eddie are in New York. I’m in LA with Richie.  
**Stan** : Interesting.  
**Bill** : Interesting.  
**Mike** : Interesting.  
**Ben** : 😀  
**Beverly** : the sordid love affair no one expected  
**Richie** : bevs and eds spagheds  
**Beverly** : i’m really enjoying being the other woman, baby’s due in june  
**Stan** : Is Eddie doing ok?  
**Beverly** : he’s sleeping so heavy i keep putting my head against his chest to make sure he’s breathing because i’m losing my mind  
**Richie** : send pics now  
**Beverly** : [Several pictures of Eddie sleeping]  
**Mike** : Awww cutie

**Bill** : Guys what happened to Morrissey, why is he like that  
**Richie** : decided it would be safer to become a white nationalist than admit he’s gay  
**Stan** : What??? Morrissey???  
**Richie** : yea stan don’t you read british tabloids  
**Stan** : No, Richie, I don’t read British tabloids

**Ben** : I got corn on the cob from a nice man on the street 😀

**Richie** : i miss eddie  
**Mike** : Me too  
**Bill** : Me too  
**Ben** : Me too 😢  
**Stan** : Me too.  
**Beverly** : [Several pictures of Eddie sleeping]  
**Beverly** : he’s boring

**Mike** : Who is the nicest celebrity you’ve met, Richie?  
**Richie** : ariana grande  
**Beverly** : omggggggggg i’m dying to dress her one day  
**Richie** : she whipped her head around rly fast & her ponytail went in my mouth  
**Beverly** : OMG!  
**Stan** : Who is she?  
**Beverly** : you’re so old  
  


It occurs to Eddie that he has never had anyone in his life with whom he could sit around with and talk for hours and hours, prattling on about nothing, sharing random musings and observations. The reason why he never found that kind of friendship in anyone during his adult life is because he was missing it too much in the only people he ever really loved.

**+**

  
Beverly returns home in tears.

Something about the domesticity of the grocery store, she explains as she tosses ready-made salads into the refrigerator, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to Eddie. She slams the refrigerator closed and falls to her knees and screams. A horror movie kind of scream. Eddie sits down beside her. It takes him a moment, but he braces himself against the cabinet behind them and slides down next to her.

“I should have gone with you,” he says. “I’m sorry. That was selfish of me.”

“No.” Beverly waves her hand at him dismissively, as if she wasn’t just screaming bloody murder. “It’s okay, it’s just… hard. You know. Looking back on the last three decades of your life and realizing none of it was normal. It makes it hard to do things like go to the grocery store. I guess.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I think I see what you mean.”

“I also got an aluminum baseball bat because I’m fucking crazy,” she tells him. “I left it on the porch. So if your wife decides to show up…” She pantomimes swinging a baseball bat at full force and then drops her arms, dejected.

“It’s okay, Beverly.”

“I knew this was going to happen. I just fucking knew it. You know? I cried so hard when you were in the hospital. But then when you woke up, I told myself I had to stop crying or I would upset everyone else, because we were through the worst of it then, there was no point in crying.” She tugs at the hem of her shirt, squeezes it in tight between her fingers.

“You have a lot to cry about that has nothing to do with me,” Eddie says.

“Yeah. I guess I do. And it’s just too fucking much. Like my body can’t even hold it all. I’m gonna, explode, you know? I’m gonna lose it,” she says, wiping her eyes. “Fuck. What I wouldn’t give to be thirteen again.”

“Our lives were terrible,” Eddie says with a nervous laugh. Just thinking about it makes him want to tear his skin off. Living in that horrible house with his horrible mother. But, still…

“They were! Oh my God, our lives were awful, but it was so simple, too. It was simple. I felt happy with you guys. I felt like… I sort of understood, then, that meeting you all wasn’t just some kind of fluke. It was the universe showing me how good my life could be, if I just had a little patience. Twenty-seven years’ worth of patience and here we are, Eddie. Here we are.” 

It had been simple, in the best way. Lots of shit didn’t make sense in their lives—the causal cruelty from every adult they encountered, how nothing good or pure could germinate and grow within the confines of Derry, and the way every day was a battle for survival. But when they were together, that was when everything made sense. Simple, ephemeral moments of peace. Undoubtedly the happiest that any of them have ever been in their forty years. But maybe that will change soon.

“I meant to buy actual food at the store, so we could cook like the adults we are. Then I started freaking out so I grabbed a bunch of fucked up salads,” Beverly says.

“And an aluminum baseball bat,” Eddie says.

“Yes,” Beverly nods, “An aluminum baseball bat.”

**+**

They’re sitting on the couch in the living room, legs tangled together, both picking out the unsavory bits of their grocery store salads. Neither of them like the weird hardboiled eggs. Beverly decides that she wants to watch a musical, so she puts on _Little Shop of Horrors._

“I decided sometime in high school that I was going to be a famous Broadway actress,” she says. “I obviously gave up on that dream, but it did give me useless encyclopedic knowledge of musical theatre.”

“My college roommate was into musicals. A lot of Sondheim,” Eddie says.

“Gay boy?”

“Maybe. There was a lot of tension.”

“Did anything ever happen?”

“No. But almost.”

“You had sexual tension with your roommate for four whole years and didn’t even suck his dick? I’m in absolute shock.”

“I’m really good at repressing things. And resisting temptation. And ignoring shit.” He thumbs his wedding ring in slow circles around his finger. Beverly sees this.

“You’re like a fucking Puritan priest, Eddie. Have you ever fucked around with guys before? Like, ever?” she asks. “Wait—let’s rewind. Are you gay?”

“Yes. And I don’t know. Maybe.” He looks at her. She is very obviously giving him the stage. “There were guys. At parties in college. Men I’d meet at bars. And every single time, I’d go back to my dorm, or back to my apartment, and I’d just sit there and stew in how much I hate myself. I’d tell myself that this was definitely the last time. Then I met Myra. I wanted to make my mom happy before she died, so. I got married to someone who would take care of me.”

“Eddie,” Beverly sighs.

“I know,” Eddie says.

“It’s okay if you figure things out a little late,” Beverly says. She opens her mouth to continue, but then stops herself. She looks like she’s choosing her next words very carefully. “Is it okay if I bring up Richie?” she asks.

Eddie stares at her. She stares back. He nods. She takes a deep breath. 

“Look—while you were unconscious, Richie and I talked a lot. A _lot_. He lost his fucking mind _so_ severely when we were getting you to the hospital that he basically didn’t have to come to out to us. That was it. That _was_ his coming out to us. He was inconsolable. We thought they were going to admit him on a 72-hour hold, Eddie. It took a lot for us to get him back down. But we did. And we had a lot of time to talk, waiting for you to wake up. His story isn’t mine to tell. I guess what I’m trying to say is that… when you two talk to each other, you’re going to find a lot of common ground, and I think that’s going to be good for you. You know?” Beverly rubs the back of her neck, looking nervously off to the side, a rare moment of visible uncertainty. She obviously wants to say more, but she is actively stopping herself. That’s what it seems like to Eddie.

“I’ll talk to him soon,” Eddie says.

“No rush,” Beverly says. She rests her head on his shoulder.

They come to the silent agreement to turn their attention back to the movie. It’s been a while since Eddie has seen it, but he still has a good idea of what he missed while they were talking. The sentient plant is no longer satiated by droplets of blood and sirloin from the butcher, he is demanding that Seymour feed him human meat. Eventually, the plant reasons that _a lot of folks deserve to die_ and encourages Seymour to murder the scummy dentist who’s beating up on the girl Seymour likes. 

“What do you think,” Beverly says. “You think he’s right?” She picks out a hunk of feta cheese from her salad and pops it into her mouth.

“Who? The plant?” Eddie says.

“Yeah! Do you agree? That there are people out there who deserve to die?”

Eddie’s kneejerk reaction is to say no. He thinks of what he would say if his wife asked him this question, or a coworker, or someone at some stuffy, bullshit dinner party. If it were a politically slanted conversation about the death penalty or the inherent sanctity of all human life. He would say no to those people, that no one deserves to die. But this is Beverly. And they’ve seen the worst of human nature together.

“I think Henry Bowers deserved to die,” Beverly says, filling the thoughtful silence.

“I think your dad deserved to die,” Eddie says.

“I think my husband deserves to die,” Beverly says.

“Your husband deserves to die,” Eddie says, grabbing her hand, and she smiles at him like he just said I love you or something equally kind and gentle.

When the movie is over, Beverly decides that she wants to have something to drink, so she scrounges around the kitchen until she finds some wine that suits her tastes. Eddie wants to decline since he has taken medication in the past few hours, and Beverly insists that just a bit won’t cause him any harm.

“You’re really peer pressuring me to drink while I’m on pain medication,” he says in disbelief.

“I am!” Beverly replies cheerfully, taking a big drink of wine right out of the bottle. “Just a little bit.”

Eddie concedes. He takes the bottle from her and has a small sip. He starts to laugh. “I can’t drink after Myra,” he says. “I’ve never been able to share food with her. It just feels disgusting. I don’t worry about things like that with you.”

“It probably isn’t a good idea to marry someone you can’t drink after,” Beverly says. She takes the bottle back from him and has a drink, gulping back roughly the equivalent of one glass.

“Well, what did I know, I thought being physically repulsed by everyone around me was completely normal,” Eddie says with a resigned shrug.

“Love’s a little gross. When you love someone, you’re okay with them being a little gross around you. Seeing the nitty-gritty, you know,” Beverly says. “You woke up one morning in the hospital—totally out of it, but you were talking to us. You were complaining that you were thirsty, but you didn’t have the strength to sit up and drink anything. So Richie sat there with you and held ice chips to your lips until you fell asleep.”

Eddie vaguely remembers this. The bitter feeling of powerlessness, not even being able to sit up and have a sip of water, slowly melted down like the ice chips. And with each melted ice chip, he felt the quick brush of Richie’s finger against his lips.

“I don’t want it to be so quiet,” Beverly says, seeming to sense that Eddie doesn’t want to talk about that. “Before they left, I asked Ben to explain how to make music play from my phone on those fancy speakers. I was crying, but I think I retained a little bit of it.” She nods in the direction of said fancy speakers that sit on either side of the equally fancy, enormous flatscreen television.

“Bluetooth,” Eddie says, nodding. “Spotify. I know what that is.”

“Yes, Bluetooth and Spotify,” Beverly says, clueless. “Eddie baby, we’re old.” She taps around on her phone for a minute, then lets out a triumphant cry as the opening notes of _Send in the Clowns_ lilt and flow from the speakers. It’s a soft, sad song, one that Eddie’s old college roommate would always hum to himself when he was doing homework.

Beverly rises to her feet and then pulls Eddie up to his, and it only hurts a little bit. She throws back her head and laughs—she’s wine drunk and her cheeks are flushed. She takes Eddie’s hand in hers, and then places her other one on his shoulder, and leads him in a slow, clumsy dance. “This is how we would have danced together at prom,” she says.

“To Stephen Sondheim’s greatest hits?” Eddie asks, laughing, and then gasping, surprised when Beverly dips him down so low he’s scared that he’ll collapse. He doesn’t collapse, though. Because he’s getting better. He’s getting stronger. Leaving Derry was the cure. And Beverly doesn’t treat him like he’s made of glass.

“No,” she says, holding him there with impressive strength. Eyes locked with his. Her forever youthful, impossible resolve. “It would have been to the Cranberries.” Then she pulls him back up and spins herself under his good arm.

As long as Beverly is smiling, Eddie follows her lead. They bump into the coffee table. Beverly laughs and glides them away. She sings, quiet and a little offkey, “ _Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career. And where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns. Well, maybe next year.._.”

And then she collapses to the floor, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs.

Eddie follows her down and pulls her into a hug. “Shh, Bev, it’s okay,” he whispers, rubbing his hand up and down her back. He’s never been good at consoling people. Beverly isn’t too great at it herself. It’s a good thing they’re together right now.

“We’re the clowns, Eddie,” she says. She laughs, but the tears down’s stop for that. She shakes, and she lets her tears soak through Eddie’s shirt on purpose. “We’re the clowns, and the joke has been on us for the last thirty fucking years.”

“Maybe, but that’s okay,” Eddie says easily. He tightens his hold on her. “I like the song about dying.”

“It’s a metaphor,” Beverly sniffs. “It isn’t really about dying.”

“I’m a risk analyst, Bev, metaphorical writing isn’t one of specialties.”

“ _Every day a little death_ ,” Beverly sings quietly. Her voice is rough, torn up from the laughter, from the sobbing, and then she says slowly, like a poetry recitation, “ _In the parlor, in the bed. In the lips and in the eyes_.”

“ _In the curtains, in the silver, in the buttons, in the bread_ ,” Eddie says. He leans away from her just slightly and wipes her tears with his thumbs, wet streaks still staining her face.

“ _In the murmurs, in the pauses, in the gestures, in the sighs. Every day a little sting, every day a little dies. In the heart and in the head_.” She pauses, nestling her head against his shoulder, the collar of his shirt catching her fresh batch of tears. “ _In the looks and in the lies_.”

Wrapped up in each other, they whisper together, inharmoniously, “ _Every move and everything, and you hardly feel a thing. Brings a perfect little death_.”

“It’s about someone whittling away at your life, at your soul,” Beverly says, jaw clenched, the way she sounds when she’s trying and nearly failing to keep her composure. One last ditch effort to hold it all together. “You die a little every day. The fucking mundanity of it all. It’s a metaphor for your daily life slowly killing you and the person who is supposed to love you is just. Chipping away at you forever.”

“It’s not going to be like that anymore, Bev,” Eddie says into her hair.

Beverly pulls back. She grabs Eddie’s face in her hands and holds him perfectly still. Her voice cracks as she speaks, “It _cannot_ be like that anymore, Eddie. We cannot live that way anymore. There’s hardly anything left of me. Just rubble on a cracked foundation.”

“Me too.”

“So… we stack our fucking pieces back together and build upwards. Build a house back up.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. He grabs Beverly’s wrists to gently move her arms down to her side, trying to encourage the tension to leave her limbs. “We build a house,” he says, and then he finally lets himself cry with her.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter!](https://twitter.com/hereditary_2018)
> 
> "send in the clowns" and "every day a little death" are from stephen sondheim's "a little night music".


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